Think AI Startup Launches in Riyadh

Think, a new AI infrastructure startup headquartered in Riyadh, launched today with a focus on improving GPU efficiency and tackling data‑centre performance bottlenecks. The company was founded by Ahmed AlSharif, a former Sandsoft CTO and engineering leader who spent 16 years at PlayStation, EA and Meta, and technology sales veteran Ammar Enaya, who brings more than 30 years of regional sales experience including roles at Cisco, HPE Aruba and Vectra AI. Think says it will address cooling, power efficiency and GPU utilisation while pursuing patents for several new products and plans a public debut of those products at LEAP in Riyadh on August 31–September 3, 2026.

"I've spent close to two decades as a software engineer and engineering leader, and the games industry has been optimising GPUs and extracting maximum performance from constrained hardware for over forty years. So in reality, my core discipline was to solve compute problems," said Ahmed AlSharif, Co‑Founder and CEO of Think.

Context and company approach

Think positions its engineering approach as a transfer of lessons from high‑performance gaming to large‑scale AI workloads. The startup says the rapid expansion of data centres and AI platforms has driven shortages and rising costs for memory and GPUs, and that its work reframes the problem away from hardware procurement to GPU efficiency and systems engineering.

• Founders: Ahmed AlSharif (Co‑Founder & CEO) and Ammar Enaya (Co‑Founder)
• Headquarters: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
• Technical focus: cooling, power efficiency, GPU utilisation
• Commercial posture: patents pending, bootstrapped to date, exploring an initial funding round
• Planned product reveal: LEAP, August 31–September 3, 2026

"With Think, we have a huge opportunity to work with companies that see the potential for AI, but are constrained by the rising cost of hardware, the dominance of a handful of cloud‑based AI companies, and concerns around the security and sovereignty of their data and infrastructure," said Ammar Enaya, Co‑Founder of Think. Enaya added that conversations across the region validated the company's focus on AI sovereignty and data privacy without reliance on traditional data centres or cloud dependencies.

The company has been bootstrapped by its two founders so far but is actively exploring an initial funding round to support rollout. Think also says it has signed several memoranda of understanding with prospective partners, signalling early commercial interest in its unified software and hardware stack.

Outlook

Think's launch arrives amid broader regional conversations about reducing dependence on a small number of dominant cloud AI providers and growing global concerns about the cost and availability of GPUs and memory. By emphasising GPU efficiency and system‑level engineering, Think is pitching a solution that aims to lower operating costs and improve sovereignty for organisations, enterprises and governments. The company's patents pending and planned LEAP showcase in late summer 2026 will be the first public milestones to watch as it seeks partners and potential investors for an initial funding round.